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George Engleheart

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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GEORGE ENGLEHEART (1752-1829), English miniature painter, the great rival of Richard Cosway, was born at Kew in October 1752, and received his artistic training first under George Barret, R.A., and then under Sir Joshua Reynolds. He started on his own account in 1773, and exhibited in that year at the Royal Academy. He continued the active pursuit of his profession down to 1813, when he retired, and his fee-book, still in existence, records the names of his sitters, and the amount paid for each portrait, proving that he painted 4853 miniatures during that period of thirty-nine years, and that his professional income for many years exceeded £1 200 a year. During the greater part of his life he resided in Hertford Street, Mayfair, where he lived till he retired. He died at Blackheath in 1829, and was buried at Kew.

He painted George III. twenty-five times, and had a very extensive circle of patrons, comprising nearly all the important persons connected with the court. He made careful copies in miniature of many of the famous paintings executed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and in some cases these constitute the only information we possess respecting portraits by Sir Joshua that are now missing. His fee-book, colours, appliances and a large collection of his miniatures still remain in the possession of his descendants.

His nephew, John Cox Dillman Engleheart (1784-1862), also a miniature painter, entered George Engleheart's studio when he was but fourteen years of age. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1801, and sent in altogether 157 works. He was a man of substantial means, and in his time a very popular painter, but his health broke down when he was fortyfour years old, and he had to relinquish the pursuit of his profession. He lived at Tunbridge Wells for some years and died there in 1862.

See George Engleheart, by G. C. Williamson and H. L. D. Engleheart (1902). (G. C. W.)